In March, government and non-governmental demining units surveyed over 26.5 thousand hectares of agricultural land, returning nearly 23.5 thousand hectares to operational use. Since the beginning of the year, a total of 80.3 thousand hectares of land have been surveyed, with approximately 74 thousand hectares returned to operation. This was reported by the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko, referring to the data from the State Service of Ukraine for Explosive Affairs.

"During March, our deminers returned an additional nearly 23.5 thousand hectares of land to farmers. And since the beginning of the year, about 74 thousand hectares have been returned to operation. This is equivalent to approximately 350 thousand tons of wheat that farmers will harvest this year from fields cleared of mines and explosives. Importantly, by the end of March, 80% of the returned areas were actively used for their intended purpose," Yulia Svyrydenko noted.

As emphasized by the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Economy, the government is comprehensively addressing the task of accelerating the clearance of Ukrainian territory from mines.

"We are working on all defined directions. In March, compensation procedures were established for farmers ordering humanitarian demining services for their lands. This is an important step towards launching the humanitarian demining market. We have signed an agreement with Palantir – advanced big data analysis technologies and artificial intelligence will help us organize the survey and demining work more effectively. We are actively working on the implementation of domestic developments and strengthening the capabilities of operators through the procurement of Ukrainian equipment and machinery," Yulia Svyrydenko said.

According to the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Economy, in March, the number of units conducting humanitarian or operational demining, as well as the number of deployed demining machines, increased.